CLEMSON, S.C. — Tommy Bowden, midway through his 10th season as the head coach of the Clemson University football team, has been fired.

Assistant head coach Dabo Swinney will take over the team for the remainder of the team’s season.

At least Mama Bowden won’t have to agonize over the Clemmins-FSU game this year.

And one more thought: how does Vanderbilt, of all places, handle the distraction of in season speculation about another school’s head coaching search that will have Bobby Johnson as a likely target?

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UPDATE: It’s good to know that Bowden leaves behind one huge fan in the wake of his firing.

ESPN reported that the team was informed of Bowden’s firing this morning, and quoted quarterback Cullen Harper as saying the dismissal was “deserved.” Harper was demoted from starting quarterback this weekend.

“It’s what he deserved,” Harper, who was benched after the Tigers’ loss to Wake Forest loss and replaced by highly regarded sophomore Willy Korn, told ESPN…

I can’t prove it but I believe Georgia’s penalty problems are making it tough for the pollsters to show them a lot of love. Let’s look at the facts. Statistically, Georgia dominated Saturday’s game with Tennessee. But mistakes and penalties allowed Tennessee, a team that is really struggling, to stay close. Georgia had 11 penalties in this game and now leads the nation with 63 in six games. I think the pollsters are looking at Georgia as a good team but not a great team because it makes too many mistakes and can’t put a team away…

So pollsters look at penalty problems when they vote, eh? Well, Georgia is ranked 116th nationally in penalty yardage per game. Only three teams have yielded more. However, one of those three is the team currently ranked #4 in the Coaches Poll and #6 in the AP Poll, Southern Cal. Highly ranked Oklahoma is 104th in penalty yardage. Even Florida, who is the subject of much praise in Barnhart’s column, sits at a less than stellar 97th nationally.

The voters aren’t discounting Georgia in the polls because of penalties. They’re doing it because Georgia got its ass kicked every which way and back in the first half of a big national TV game. Barnhart is on stronger ground with his “can’t put a team away” comment, but there’s still plenty of time for that to happen, penalty situation notwithstanding.

Given the number of highly ranked teams that suffered losses last weekend, it was inevitable that this week’s rankings would be in a state of flux. I had a hard time deciding which school was worthy of claiming that last top five slot. I had an equally hard time deciding on the last team in my dirty dozen.

Penn State is starting to make a believer out of me. Wisconsin isn’t as good as many thought it would be in the preseason; still, you don’t see the Badgers get destroyed at home like that very often. The interesting debate will come if Ohio State beats Penn State later this season – for Southern Cal as well as the Buckeyes.

I’m glad I didn’t have to spend time parsing whether Alabama or Texas deserves to be ranked #1.

I had a hard time with number twelve and looked at four different teams in that slot. In the end, I stuck with Utah, because it won and I didn’t feel right penalizing it. On the other hand, that Michigan win grows more worthless with each passing week and I can see some other team’s resume catching up.

LSU was not one of those four teams. I’m not ready to write the Tigers’ chances off for this season, but Florida certainly exposed some flaws in this team. On the other side, it appears to me that Florida is only going to be challenged by a team with a credible passing attack. If you look at the Gators’ remaining schedule, you’ll see there are very few viable candidates to pose that threat.

I wasn’t quite prepared to banish Missouri from the top twelve, mainly because I’m not sure I’ve got a good handle on the quality of the top of the Big XII yet.